Reporting of Fetal Deaths in New York City

FOR MANY YEARS New York City has tacitly required reporting of fetal deaths at all periods of gestation by omission in its sanitary code of any qualifications as to the gestation age to be reached before reporting is required.Prior to 1938, "still births" were required to be reported within 36 hours of the event whereas live births were reportable within 10 days, but no further definition or distinction was indicated.In 1937 the late Thomas J. Duffield, then di- rector of the bureau of records and statistics of the New York City Department of Health, realizing that many physicians were failing to comply with the intent of the law, recommended that the code be revised to express more specifically the requirements regarding reporting of fetal deaths.He recognized that data which could be obtained only by mass reporting of early fetal deaths were of value in investigations of early pregnancy wastage and that these data would also provide a more nearly complete base for calculation of a puerperal mortality rate.Accordingly, in 1938 the board of health, with the advice of the obstetric advisory council to the commissioner of health and with the ap- proval of the county medical societies and the New York Academy of Medicine, adopted a complete new section, defining fetal death and specifying signs of life as follows:AMr. Erhardt is director of the bureau of records and statistics of the New York City Department of Health.This paper is based on one presented by him before